


You Always Say the Stupidest Shit

by mischiefmanager



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Anal Sex, Awkward Conversations, Bickering, Bickering during Sex, Grinding, Hand Jobs, Humor, Keith (Voltron) is Bad at Feelings, Lance Has an Endless Array of TERRIBLE Euphemisms for Sex, M/M, Oblivious Pining Fluff Disguised as Porn, Smut, So So SO Much Bickering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-18
Updated: 2017-05-18
Packaged: 2018-11-02 02:45:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,370
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10935372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mischiefmanager/pseuds/mischiefmanager
Summary: "I know what your problem is," Lance interrupts, pointing a finger at him and smirking as though he's just personally discovered the deepest secret of the universe. God only knows why Keith stops talking then, but in hindsight, he wishes he'd have just gotten louder."You need to get laid," Lance announces.





	You Always Say the Stupidest Shit

**Author's Note:**

> I'm in the middle of writing a really long Yuri!!! On Ice fic and I took a break and then THIS steaming pile of porn fell out of my brain.

"I'm hungry," Lance moans for the eightieth time in an hour.

"I know," Keith bites out from between his teeth. Honestly, the situation isn't really that bad compared to how it could be. No Galra, nothing shooting at them—just Keith and Lance. Alone on an apparently empty planet. Waiting to get picked up. Nothing to do but listen to Lance blather on and on about how hungry he is, and how it's hot, and how he's bored...

Okay, maybe it  _is_  that bad.

"We have nothing to  _dooo,"_  Lance complains again, flopping down on his back in the grass. He took his armor off hours ago, the idiot.  _We're alone on this planet,_  he'd said, stripping off his bracers.  _What could possibly go wrong_ , he'd said, shirt riding up to his neck and giving Keith a face-full of his bare chest. He'd taken his sweet time pulling it back down, too. Lovely.

"How long until they get here?" Lance whines.

Keith checks the time. "A while. Hope you're comfortable."

"Man, why did we get stuck scouting this planet while everyone else is off diplomacizing? Is that a word? Diplomacizing? Diplomatting. They're diplomatting all over the place and we're here starving to death..."

"You just answered your own question," Keith grumbles.  _"You_  don't get sent to parlay with anyone because you think 'diplomacizing' and 'diplomatting' are words, and then _I_  get stuck babysitting  _you._ There's no 'we' about this. _"_

Okay, so maybe Keith doesn't go "diplomatting" because he isn't always the easiest person to get along with. And he's kind of stubborn, and maybe sort of hot-headed—which sometimes leads to him saying dumb shit that gets them in trouble. So maybe that's also a reason he gets stuck with Lance, but probably mostly because Shiro trusts him not to let Lance go wandering off into space. Probably.

"You always say the nicest things, Keith," Lance says, reaching over and patting him on the back. Keith swats his hand away. "Not that sitting here watching you brood isn't like...the greatest pastime ever, but I'm going to find some food."

What was Keith _just_  thinking about Lance wandering off into space?

"Are you out of your mind?" Keith says.

"What's the worst that could happen?" Lance asks him.

Keith actually sputters.

"Wha—what? What's the worst that could happen? Galra could show up. You could get lost. You could get eaten by some alien we haven't encountered yet. You could get captured. You could get stuck somewhere. Take your pick. I've got more." 

"Oh come on, Keith. You really think— “

"And worse," Keith says, raising his voice over Lance's, "any of those things means I will have to come rescue your ass. Which I'm not doing. So if you can't handle being a little hungry for another couple of hours— “

"I know what your problem is," Lance interrupts, pointing a finger at him and smirking as though he's just personally discovered the deepest secret of the universe. God only knows why Keith stops talking then, but in hindsight, he wishes he'd have just gotten louder.

"You need to get laid," Lance announces.

"Excuse me?" Keith says in the most dangerous voice he can manage—which comes out more flustered than anything else. Great.

"You're  _way_  too uptight," Lance tells him, like it's an official diagnosis from Dr. I-Pulled-This-Out-Of-My-Ass. "Here's what you need: A roll in the hay. To make the beast with two backs. Do the horizontal tango. Take your pick. I've got more."

It takes all of Keith's willpower not to physically cringe. He is positive he's never heard so many awful expressions together at once. An image pops into his head of Lance, naked and—no. No no no. No way.

"I don't see how that's any of your business," Keith snaps, because it's the best response he can think of. In fact, it’s the only response he can think of.

"I'm just sayin'," Lance shrugs, settling back down in the grass, head resting on his own discarded breastplate. 

"Thanks for your concern," Keith spits. "That's _not_ what's wrong with me, and even if it was it's not like we work in a dating-friendly envi— “

Lance looks him dead in the eye, then motions down his body with both hands. It takes a moment for Keith’s brain to process, but when it does...actually it doesn’t. It doesn’t process at all because what Lance appears to be alluding to could not possibly be what he’s trying to say.

"What the hell?" Keith asks. "Are you—are you offering to— “

 _Ew, no dude, not like that._ That’s what Keith is expecting. That’s what Lance _should_ be saying, except he’s not. He’s dropping this shit bomb instead.

"Uh  _yeah,"_  says Lance, like it's  _obvious_  and Keith is  _stupid._  "What do you think"—he makes the same incomprehensible gesture— “means?"

"I don't know! You just literally made that up right now!" Keith says, throwing his hands in the air.

"Did not," Lance argues. "That is the universal gesture for 'you want summa this?'"

Oh my  _God._  If they'd been in the castle, Keith would've definitely thrown Lance out of the airlock by now. Or maybe jumped out himself—that would be better, because now he’s going to hear Lance saying “you want summa this” on a permanent loop in his mind until he dies. Preferably soon.

Keith has absolutely no clue what he would have said had his comm not buzzed at that very moment.

"Hey guys," Pidge comes in. "Negotiations got cut short, and not in a good way—looks like we're leaving in a hurry. Be there in a tick." She cuts out.

"Yes!" Lance cries, jumping up and pumping his fist in the air. "Food!"

Apparently they're just going to drop the fact that Lance just  _propositioned him in the most awful way imaginable._  Keith wonders if he hasn't already forgotten about it. 

Keith walks back into Red on autopilot and buckles himself in, still kind of reeling because like...he's never been great with talking to people and conversations, but that was by far the weirdest exchange he's _ever_ had. And he's positive it was Lance being weird, and not him. Like if he told Hunk about it, Hunk would agree Lance was being weird, and Keith was being normal. But he's not going to tell Hunk—or anyone at all for that matter. He's going to go back to the castle, take a shower, and then completely forget this ever happened.

 

\---

 

...except fuck.

Keith does  _not_  need to get laid. Keith actually firmly believes that no one  _needs_  to get laid. He  _needs_  to eat, he  _needs_  to sleep (occasionally anyway) but the idea of going out and finding someone to...to _do that_ with is insane, especially when he has a perfectly good right hand that he can use much more easily. Easily  _and safely_ , because when you're a paladin of Voltron, dating might be dangerous, not just inconvenient.

Which brings him back to the thing he's been resolutely not thinking about since yesterday, which is Lance. And the stupid thing that Lance  _suggested,_  probably just to get a rise out of Keith—which, of course, isn't working. Keith's not freaking out. He could forget about it anytime he wants, no problem... 

...he tells himself, at two in the morning, as he stares at his clock, begging his brain to _go the fuck to sleep_ or at least think about  _anything_  but naked Lance.

Keith is pretty sure he's never once thought about Lance like  _that_  before yesterday. Lance is literally  _the_  most annoying person Keith has ever met, and he gets them into trouble way more often than necessary, and he smells like sweaty dude more often than not, and he's tall and dark and... 

Nope. Keith pulls his brain back on track. Lance is _the worst_. He'd rather get naked with Coran.

Except that _that_ thought pulls an involuntary shudder and a grimace out of him, while the thought of naked Lance (besides being constant and impossible to ignore) ...doesn't. 

You know what? Fuck this. Keith gets out of bed, pulls a shirt on over his pajama bottoms, and decides to go tell Lance exactly where he can stick his offer, or suggestion, or whatever the hell it is.

Keith gets as far as the hallway outside Lance's door before he pauses. What if Lance is asleep? Does he care if he wakes him up? Keith decides he might care, and continues past Lance's door because while he's up, he figures he might as well grab a snack. 

He doesn't get to the kitchen before he decides that he  _doesn't_  care if he wakes Lance up, because it sucks to be woken up but it also sucks to be offered...whatever by your supposed "rival" (Keith still thinks that's being generous to Lance), and he's all confused and the least he can do is to repay the favor by waking Lance up in the middle of the night to shout at him.

Keith's paused with his hand raised to knock on Lance's door when...actually, maybe it'd be better to wait until tomorrow. He doesn't even know what he's planning on saying, and while it may best encompass how he feels, just opening the door and roaring in Lance's face is probably not the most effective means of communicating his problems. And Shiro is always stressing "effective communication," because getting along as a team and forming Voltron and blah blah blah.

Keith has almost reached his own room before he remembers his snack, so he turns around and heads back toward the kitchen but he never gets there because at the exact moment he's passing Lance's room, Lance opens the door and is suddenly standing there in his regular clothes. Apparently he wasn’t asleep.

"Are you coming in or what?" he asks Keith.

Keith's first instinct is to roar in his face. But he doesn't because...Shiro. Effective communication. 

"I was on my way to the kitchen," Keith says, as calmly as he can. "Go back to bed."

Which is a stupid thing to say because Lance obviously wasn’t in bed at all. Keith mentally smacks himself in the forehead.

"No you weren't," Lance argues, leaning up against his doorframe, arms crossed over his chest. "I heard you  _fretting_  out here."

"I wasn't fretting," Keith says automatically, even though he totally was. 

"Uh, yes you were. So, are you coming in or what?"

Keith's not sure what gave Lance the impression he was planning on coming in, but Lance just rolls his eyes and before Keith can even think of a response, he reaches out, grabs Keith's arm and pulls him into the room, shutting the door behind them.

"Alright," Lance says, and then he starts unbuckling his belt like he's just going to whip it out right here—what the fuck, what the _fuck!?_  "Let's do this thing."

"Let's do  _what_  thing?" Keith manages, because the idea of Lance whipping it out right here should be the nastiest shit he can think of, but it's  _so_ not. It's doing a lot of weird things to his body, like making his pulse race and his palms sweaty and that freaks him out. Not Lance naked—that's what  _should_  be freaking him out, but he's a lot more worried about the fact that apparently his body is  _very much okay_  with the idea of Lance getting naked in front of him. _That’s_ what’s freaking him out.

"I'm assuming you decided to take me up on my oh-so-generous offer," Lance replies, now unbuttoning his jeans. "What else would you be doing pacing outside my room at two in the morning?" 

"Why were you awake anyway?" Keith asks stupidly, instead of responding. He's suddenly become unwillingly mesmerized by the sight of Lance pulling down his jeans and stepping out of them. He's leaving his socks on then, ugh. Wait, no. What does Keith care if Lance leaves his socks on? It’s not like they’re going to be doing anything, except maybe Keith’s going to yell at him for a minute and then storm out dramatically in high dudgeon. 

Yeah, that doesn’t happen either.

"Aren't you gonna like...take your clothes off?" Lance asks, like Keith's the one being crazy here. 

"I'm not stripping in front of you," Keith says, shaking his head. 

"Oh, clothes on?" Lance shrugs. "Suit yourself!"

And then? Then Lance leans over and kisses him—kisses him like it's _nothing,_ no big deal, like they've done this a thousand times. And Keith swears to God that actual sparks are flying behind his eyes because Lance's lips are _really_ soft, like really pillowy soft—and he must've recently showered because he doesn't smell even a little bit like sweaty dude. Unfortunately.

He _should_ tell Lance to stop because it's _Lance_ for fuck's sake, but he can't because if he does Lance absolutely _will_ stop and apologize and put his clothes back on and Keith really, really doesn't want that to happen. If Keith pulls back, Lance will think they're not on the same page when, according to Keith's rock hard erection— _when the fuck did that happen?_ —and every other nerve in his body, they totally are. 

Something inside Keith snaps. He pulls himself together enough to decide to kiss back, except apparently he already started doing that; he's not sure when, but he's got his tongue in Lance's mouth so it must've happened at some point. He pushes on Lance's shoulders—not demanding, just guiding, until Lance gets with the program and takes a couple steps back, falling oddly gracefully onto the bed on his back.

He's still wearing a shirt and underwear (and his damn socks, gross), but Keith's body is screaming at him to crawl over Lance and get back to being all up in his business so he forgoes the getting undressed part and scrambles on top of Lance instead. He also has a feeling that the gentlemanly thing to do here would be to hover over Lance and kiss him for a little while but...okay, not doing that either apparently. Lance bucks up, Keith grinds down, and goddamnit now they're just humping, which is _seriously_ pathetic. At least they're still kissing. Keith gives himself one sad, solitary gold star for that. 

Keith guesses it’s his fault for starving his body of human contact for this long, but they're just grinding and it shouldn't feel this good—it _shouldn’t._ But it really, _really_ does. The roll of his hips and the pressure of Lance against him is making him feel stupid and lightheaded. And it just keeps going—Lance doesn’t make any attempt to change course, just goes right along with what Keith is doing and honestly Keith thinks it would be so much easier to deal with if Lance weren’t so...willing. Eager. He’s not arguing, he’s not being a moron—probably because his mouth is busy. Keith bets Lance will go right back to being an asshole the second his lips and tongue are no longer...occupied, so really Keith should just stop kissing him. Lance is never quiet, he’ll probably start talking within ten seconds, and then Keith will have no problem getting up and going back to his room and pretending this was all just some kind of crazy dream or hallucination or...oh _God._

And then he realizes with horror that he's approaching the point of no return, and... shit. He has to make a split second decision whether to stop and make up some excuse and leave to finish himself off in his bunk, or to barrel forward and just pray that it's one of those orgasms where he can just keep doing what he's doing and hope that Lance doesn't notice. And he wants to stop, because that's the logical course of action and it's so embarrassing but...it just feels so _good,_ and Lance's skin is warm and smooth, and it's for that last weird reason that instead of stopping he just hides his face in Lance's neck and keeps rocking until he absolutely cannot hold back a second longer.

And of course, _of course_ it's not one of those lowkey ones where he can just act like he's not curling his toes and feeling like his insides are liquefying. He hears himself make some horrible whimpering noise that he will never, ever own up to and all his limbs are shaking and his eyes are pressed so tightly closed that all he can see is black and it’s _unreal_ it feels so good.

He keeps his face buried in Lance's neck when it's over because maybe then Lance won't be able to tell how badly it’s burning.

"You came," Lance says, and it's not a question. He sounds...a little surprised.

 _You got a problem with that?_ is the first thing that comes to mind, but Keith doesn't say it because he can't seem to summon his usual level of snark. His whole body appears to have been turned to lead, and he's stopped rocking his hips because now he's too sensitive to keep going—in case there was any lingering doubt as to what just happened. 

"It's cool," Lance says, apparently reading Keith's mortification somehow from his non-existent body language. "That felt good, so..."

"You didn't come," Keith grumbles against the skin of Lance's neck. It sounds a lot more petulant than he would've liked. Does he _want_ Lance to come? Why does he feel like he just lost a contest? 

"Nah. I may need a little more than grinding to bust a nut. But...I was getting there." Bust a... no. Why does it feel like Lance is trying to make him feel better? Ugh.  

"Oh."

"Are we done?" Lance asks, struggling to push himself onto his elbows underneath Keith’s dead weight. "Cause if you're done, then I need you to get up because I’m gonna have to jerk off." 

Oh.  _No_ , Keith's brain insists, _then we are definitely not done._  Keith sits up, staring stupidly at Lance’s tented underpants. He has no idea what he’s going to do or say, but one thing is for sure—he’s not going to run away. He kind of wants to, he kind of wants to race back to his room, lock the door, and hide under the covers until enough time has passed that he can laugh about that crazy incident where he humped Lance until he came in his pants.

“Hello?” says Lance, waving a hand in front of Keith’s face. “Look, I’m just gonna get started. Let me know if you snap out of it or whatever.”

And then Lance _does_ just whip it out, and oh boy Keith wishes he’d never seen it because now he’s fucked. Truly fucked. Because he’s been thinking about it for two days and the reality is, _of course,_ because the universe hates Keith, _better_ than he’d imagined—a lot better, harder, hotter—all the good adjectives that can be used to describe someone’s junk. And if he hadn’t literally just come less than a minute ago he’d probably be doing it now just watching Lance jerk himself off.

Just as Keith has pretty much settled on the idea that he’s gonna go ahead and be a passive observer in Lance’s one-man show, his hand makes the unilateral decision to get involved. He reaches forward and places his fingers over Lance’s. Lance stops for just a split second—evidently he wasn’t expecting Keith to start participating again and what kind of selfish jerk does he think Keith is anyway? —and then keeps going. Their hands move together for just a moment, just long enough to give Keith an idea of the motion that works for him, before Lance is pulling his hand away and putting his arms around Keith’s neck—he’s touching Keith’s hair with the hand that was just on his dick, ew (except not ew)—and then they’re kissing again.

Lance kisses with his whole body, leaning up into Keith, either not noticing or caring that they’re at a sort of awkward angle. Keith can feel the huffs of breath Lance is taking through his nose ghosting across his cheek and he hates to admit it but...this is the best part so far. The way Lance’s muscles are flexing, his fingers threaded through Keith’s hair, how he moans into Keith’s mouth like he _loves_ this—it’s somehow even better than when Keith got off and how is _that_ a thing—liking getting someone else off more than getting off yourself. It’s something Keith would have never guessed about himself in a million years but, well...here we are.

“Coming,” Lance says, practically into Keith’s mouth and then yup, _that’s the stuff_ —Lance twitching and then coming in his hand, his mouth going slack and panting against Keith’s...it’s amazing. Keith feels like his whole body is almost _purring_ at the feel of Lance tightening all over, like everything Keith does is shit his body doesn’t want him to do and _finally_ he got something right... He kind of hopes it’ll never stop.

And then it does. And it’s _super_ awkward.

Keith pulls his hand away, which is now wet and gross—because Keith’s gone back to noticing when gross things are gross now that he’s out of whatever _zone_ he’s just been in for the last fifteen minutes—and he wipes it on his pants because he’s going to have to wash them anyway after he like...came in them, _oh that’s fucking disgusting._ Wow. The reality of how _not good_ this situation is is setting in real fast, Lance hasn’t even opened his eyes and Keith is already trying to plan an escape to live as a hermit on another planet.

“Whew,” says Lance. “Okay dude, you gotta move. You’re crushing my legs here.”

Keith scrambles off of Lance’s thighs and crouches like a gargoyle at the foot of the bed. His pants feel...squishy. Actually, never mind washing. These pants are going straight to the incinerator.

“Awesome sauce,” Lance says—is he talking about Keith or the orgasm or what? Who knows? — “Alright Keith, my guy. You think you can show yourself out?”

Keith doesn’t move or say anything. He knows he should, he’s just...frozen.

“Never mind,” Lance says cheerfully. He tucks himself back into his underpants, then reaches over and slaps Keith’s ass to get him moving again, which somehow works—like Keith’s _on_ button is located on his butt cheek. He jumps up like a whipped horse and stands at attention on the floor next to the foot of the bed.

Lance doesn’t seem to think it’s unusual that the guy he was just getting off with has suddenly turned into a spastic robot, he just places a hand on Keith’s lower back and gently guides him toward the door.

Keith is out in the hallway, getting ready to scurry off to his bedroom to hopefully die in his sleep so he doesn’t have to think about this shit tomorrow, when Lance leans casually out of the door.

“Oh by the way, give me a heads up next time when you’re about to blow your load. Just so I don’t throw you off or anything—you know, so I know to keep doing what I’m doing. Goodnight!”

“Okay,” Keith says numbly, because sure, okay, Lance did that for him, it makes sense...

Lance closes the door.

Wait. _Next time?!_

_\---_

 

It’s morning. Time to get up and have some breakfast, then train, then...

...oh. Right. Shit.

Keith has four or five blissful seconds after he wakes up where he doesn’t remember what went down last night and then it hits him like battleship all at once—Lance kissing him, rubbing up against Lance, his hand on Lance’s...and fuck, he’s getting hard again.

After a battle of wills with his dick while he’s getting dressed (which he wins partly by swearing at it but mostly by painfully compressing it in the tightest jeans he owns), he heads down to breakfast. He’s the first one up besides Shiro, which is typical because Shiro probably wouldn’t even know what to do with a full night’s sleep.

They’re discussing tactics while people trickle in, slowly joining the conversation. Keith is resolutely _not_ watching for Lance, _not_ glancing up at the door every time someone comes in and waiting for it to be Lance—and certainly not the least bit disappointed when it’s Pidge...Hunk...Allura...Coran...

“Hnnnngh!” Keith would know that yawn _anywhere._

And there he is. Keith’s heart drops into his stomach. As soon as he hears Lance’s voice, Keith realizes that he actually _didn’t_ want Lance to come to breakfast and was instead hoping that Lance would have stopped existing as a person and a concept sometime between two in the morning and now.

“Ooh, space goo,” Lance says, plopping down in the chair next to Keith’s. “My favorite. Everyone sleep well? Keith?”

“Just fine,” Keith grits out.

“Really?” Lance asks casually, dipping his spoon into his breakfast. “I thought I heard pacing outside my room. Weird, huh?”

“Yeah,” says Keith, turning to glare at him—hoping that he suddenly developed laser vision and he can maybe bore a hole in Lance’s thick head with his eyes alone. “Maybe you’re hearing things. You should get that looked at.”

“Maybe I am,” Lance agrees with him, and Keith has a ray of hope for one golden second where he thinks...maybe Lance forgot, maybe we can get away with never discussing this...

...and then Lance goes and ruins it, which Keith should’ve seen coming because Lance _never_ agrees with him. “I heard this like...whimpering noise. It sounded like...”

“So Shiro,” Keith interrupts as loud as he can without yelling, stepping hard on Lance’s foot, “are we running drills this afternoon?”

Shiro responds, but Keith doesn’t really hear it because Lance has evidently decided that Keith stepping on his foot was an attempt at starting a game of footsie under the table—and as it turns out, Lance is _terrible_ at footsie—he later denies this, but it remains true, despite the fact that playing footsie is especially hard when the other person is sitting like a statue and refusing to make eye contact, which Lance will insist is the real problem. 

And thus begins the longest, most frustrating day of Keith’s tenure in Team Voltron.

Lance does not leave him the fuck alone for one goddamn second. He’s right up next to Keith when they’re in the training deck (and every little _oof_ or grunt just takes Keith right back to last night—he’s never been so distracted and he would’ve been dead twenty times over if they’d been fighting Galra); he showers in the stall next to Keith’s and chatters with him while Keith soaps up and tries not to think about how they’re naked and how easily one of them could just cross the barrier between stalls; he eats with Keith, and he’s just.... always there.

“ _Oh my God,_ ” Lance groans, taking a bite of Hunk’s dessert during dinner. His eyes roll back into his head and he moans appreciatively.

“Would you stop?” Keith hisses at him.

“Stop what?” Lance looks genuinely confused.

“Stop...all this. All day,” Keith explains eloquently. “With the...you know. The noises.” There. That should do it.

“The noises?” Lance looks like he’s starting to worry about Keith’s sanity.

“You know what I’m talking about,” Keith snaps.

“I don’t,” Lance says, smiling like the shit eater he is. “Maybe you’ve finally gone off the deep end.”

“Right guys?” Keith looks to the others for support. Pidge or Hunk or...or Shiro. They’ve noticed how...weirdly sexual Lance has been all day. Right? They _have_ to have.

He’s met with blank stares. 

“Right?” It comes out feeble even to Keith’s ears. 

“Uh...no?” Hunk volunteers. “Lance is being normal Lance; at least he seems normal to me.”

“Lance hasn’t done anything different than usual,” Pidge confirms. “ _You,_ on the other hand, seem more irritable and uptight than ever.”

“Is something on your mind?” Shiro asks gently. 

And then Keith kind of replays all the times he was frustrated with Lance today and realizes with a sinking feeling that _they’re right_ —aside from breakfast, Lance has been exactly how he always is—annoying, constantly present...literally the only change has been how much Keith is noticing him. Fuck.

“I’m fine,” Keith insists.

“Maybe he’s losing his mind,” Lance suggests again. He makes a gesture with one of his fingers winding in a circle by his ear. How very elementary school. 

“I’m just tired,” Keith says, pushing himself back from the table and excusing himself to his room before he starts having to get out weapons to prove his point.

Lance catches up with him in the hallway outside his bedroom.

“Hey, losing your mind or not—I had a good time last night. I’ll come by later for round two.” He winks.

 _“Round two?!”_ By the time Keith gets the words out, Lance has already given him finger guns and returned to the dining room and the table.

Keith does not sleep...like at all. He just paces and paces back and forth across his room, thinking. About the obvious stuff...Lance. Next time. Round two. 

Does he mean it? Keith wonders. Is he really going to come knock on Keith’s door tonight, and if so, when? Does Keith want him to? 

What does round two entail anyway? Are they going to do the same thing they did last night or...oh God, _more?_ Like...with mouths or...Keith shakes his head. There’s really no reason to get ahead of himself.

He’s probably not coming, Keith reasons around midnight, and he shoves the twinge of disappointment that accompanies this thought right to the back of his mind, where he plans to leave it to collect dust for the rest of his days, and he’s just about to consider putting pajamas on when...

“Knock knock,” Lance whispers unnecessarily as he also physically knocks on the door. “Your booty call has arrived.”

All the blood in Keith’s body shoots up into his face. He considers feigning sleep, waiting for Lance to go away, but...

“Oh good,” Lance says, when Keith finally works up the nerve to open the door. Lance sort of shoves his way in—not that Keith is trying to stop him—and gets right to work pushing Keith’s jacket off of his shoulders. 

“I didn’t get much of a look at you yesterday before you jumped me,” Lance says, reaching for Keith’s belt like this is par for the course and he always just busts into his teammates rooms and undresses them. “I want to get a glimpse of the goods today.” 

And just when Keith thinks it can’t get worse... “Wow. Nice package.”

Keith is about to tell him that this is all a terrible mistake, but then Lance starts kissing his neck and that’s...new. In a _really good_ way. Keith decides it’s worth continuing to make the terrible mistake at least one more time if he’s going to get his neck kissed like that, and so he gets to work pulling Lance’s shirt over his head.

“Are you going to let me get a hand in your pants this time?” Lance asks, breathing hot air onto Keith’s neck, and Keith actually _shivers._ “Or are you going to just hump me until you jizz all over yourself again?”

Either one sounds good, according to Keith’s body, and he tries to think of some biting way to say it but what comes out of his mouth is, _“mmm more.”_

“More,” Lance repeats. “Okey dokey then.”

Lance tries to pull Keith onto the bed, back on top of him but Keith stumbles over his pants, which have pooled around his ankles. He kicks off his shoes, socks, pants and underwear, and then hesitates with his fingers on the hem of his shirt.

“Are you waiting for something or did you freeze up again?” Lance asks. “Do you need to be rebooted?”

Somewhere in the recesses of Keith’s foggy brain he remembers Lance smacking his ass last night and _no_ he does not need that again, so he yanks his shirt over his head and tosses it in the pile of all his other clothes.

“Past me is pissed at you for not being naked yesterday,” Lance informs him, and that’s when it hits him that he’s _naked_ —completely naked—and Lance is like...devouring his body with his eyes. Lance is going to have this over him forever— _dude, I saw you totally naked_ —and Keith can’t have that so...

“Are you just going to gape at me like a fish or are you going to take your clothes off too?” Keith says, and _there it is!_ There’s the snark! Thank God it’s back! “I mean if you want to jizz in _your_ pants this time, whatever, it’s your— “

It worked. Lance is scrambling to pull down his pants and he kicks his shoes off the side of Keith’s bed.

Keith groans. “Are you _really_ gonna leave your socks on?”

“What?” says Lance, stretching out in all his naked glory all over Keith’s bed— _God he looks so good_ — “My feet get cold.”

“It’s disgusting,” Keith informs him. He thinks about how Lance’s scratchy old white socks (they even have holes in them, ugh) might feel against his back if Lance were to, say put his legs around Keith’s waist while Keith—nope. Not gonna think about that. 

“It didn’t bother you yesterday,” Lance whines. 

“Yes it did.” Keith insists, crossing his arms over his chest. “I was just too nice to say anything about it.” 

“I’m callin’ your bluff. You’re never too nice to say anything.”

“Fine then, I was busy,” Keith retorts.

“Oh yeah, you were busy—busy shooting a wad in your pants,” Lance snorts.

“Can you just let that go?” Keith says, and it kind of sounds like begging when he meant for it to sound annoyed. He’s _not_ going to be embarrassed about that anymore. He refuses. 

“Hmm. Probably not ever. Anyway, as flattering as that angry-crossed-arms thing you do is to your biceps, you look a _little_ ridiculous standing there like you’re trying to prove a point, but you’re butt naked and your dick is getting harder... Wait—are you seriously getting _more_ turned on by arguing with me?”

“No,” says Keith, realizing too late that that’s exactly what he would say if it was true and there is no right answer to this question, _shit._

“Oh my God, you _are!”_ Lance says, clearly delighted. “And all this time, I thought you— “ 

“I’m _not,”_ Keith insists, and he doesn’t see this going anywhere good so in order to shut Lance up he gets into bed and tries to distract him by slotting their bodies together.

“Take your damn socks off,” he mumbles against Lance’s lips before sticking his tongue in Lance’s mouth.

Lance just kisses him back, but Keith feels Lance’s knees knocking against his and he can tell he’s sliding his socks off his feet. Victory! 

And then Lance grabs a bottle of lube out of apparently nowhere, (did he bring it with him? No, that’s Keith’s lube—how did Lance know where to find it?) and then he’s snaking his hand between their bodies and grabbing hold of Keith’s...and _why is this so much better than when he does it to himself?_ Keith wonders, which is his last coherent thought for a while.

Keith has to admit (at least to himself) that Lance _really_ knows what he’s doing—he leaves no inch of Keith’s skin untouched. Keith is an expert at touching himself as quickly and efficiently as possible for the purpose of getting rid of distraction erections, but Lance takes his fucking time—sliding his slick hand down Keith’s thighs and back all the way up to the head of his...it takes Keith a few minutes to realize that he is _covered_ in lube from his bellybutton down almost to his knees.

“Did you just use up _all_ of my lube?” he asks Lance, because that’s a _super_ dick move—Keith doesn’t know the next time they’ll be on a planet where he can sneak off and find lube fit for human bodies. 

“Keep your mullet on, dude,” Lance replies, running his palm lightly along the underside of Keith’s erection and making Keith _whine_ because he doesn’t think his skin has ever felt this sensitive. Lance does not offer any other words of placation about the lube situation, the fucker...but Keith can’t really get mad because he has to grudgingly admit that if it takes all the lube in the damn galaxy to make him feel like this, then well...what are you gonna do? 

Keith tries not to shift or shove himself harder into Lance’s hand because he has a feeling that if he keeps his thrusting to a minimum, Lance is gonna make this _explosivel_ y good for him, but it’s not easy because his whole body is screaming for _more more more_ and he wants to come _now._ He’s not used to being patient in any situation, but especially not when he’s trying to get off.

After another few minutes of Lance just rubbing all over his thighs and his balls and not committing to any one spot, Keith finally has to say something about it.

“Are you gonna do this all night or what?” he snaps.

“I dunno,” Lance says casually, swiping his hand up and down Keith’s shaft a couple times but not really _stroking_ him like he needs him to, and this is it, this is how Keith is going to die—arms shaking as he supports his own weight over Lance, aroused to the point of anger— “your reactions are pretty priceless.” 

“What reactions?” Keith asks. _Come on come on come on,_ Lance.

“Your dick is twitching,” Lance informs him, like he doesn’t know that.

“Because I want you to hurry the fuck up,” Keith says.

“Alright bossypants,” Lance mumbles, but then he finally _does it_ and holy fucking shit holy fucking shit oh my God oh my God oh my—

“I’m—” he grunts, but that’s as far as he gets. So much for giving Lance a heads up.

Keith comes in like four tugs. He kisses Lance in an attempt to muffle the sounds his mouth makes while his brain blows out of the back of his head, but he’s pretty sure he failed because Lance looks _unbearably_ smug when he finally pulls away and sits back up.

“Your spooge is all over my stomach,” he points out. _Why do you think that is, you insufferable asshole?_ Keith thinks, but his mouth refuses to form words, although the idea of thanking Lance does sort of pop into his head, and he considers trying to tell him for a second before he remembers this is _Lance_ and that _hey thanks for the awesome hand job_ will probably end up written on his tombstone if he says it out loud.

And then Keith panics a little bit because...does Lance want Keith to do to him what he just did to Keith? Because Keith doesn’t even know what he was doing to make it feel that good. Yesterday was fast and frantic, and fast and frantic is Keith’s specialty—jerking off during a three-minute shower, for example, just to get it done and over with. This slow, frankly _sensual,_ thing that Lance was doing though? This is uncharted territory for Keith.

“I can’t do that thing you did if you used up all my lube on me,” Keith tells him flatly.

“Do what thing?” Lance says with a smirk, and _oh fuck you,_ Keith thinks. He wants Keith to say it. Out loud.

“You know what _thing_ —the thing you just did where you got lube all over me.” Lance just stares at him, still smirking. There’s lube up his ass crack too and Keith has no memory of how it got there. He’s gonna need a full shower after this. At least he took his pants off this time or he’d have to incinerate them too, and they’re his favorite ones.

“Am I gonna have to start beating my own meat again?” Lance asks because _oops_ —Keith’s been spacing out for a hot second there. But more importantly, where the _fuck_ is Lance getting all of these awful expressions? Keith tries not to visibly wince.

“No,” he grumbles. “Just tell me what you did and I’ll do it.”

“Do mine ears deceive me or is the great Keith Kogane, Mullet Man of the Millennium, asking for my _advice?”_ Lance says, placing a hand on his own chest like an old timey gentlewoman about to swoon from shock. The effect is somewhat lessened by Keith’s come all over his midsection.

“I can just jerk you off in ten seconds if you want,” Keith snaps. “It’s how I do it to myself every day, if that’s what you— “

“You’ve never like...taken your time with it before?” Lance asks, and he drops the smirk fast as lightning, replacing it with a sort of curiously concerned look that Keith immediately can’t _stand._  

“Unlike _you,”_ Keith says, trying to get them back on track, hoping to wipe that _look_ off Lance’s face fast because it’s making him feel weird, “I have better things to do than lay around in my room and touch myself for hours a day. So no. If you want me to do the same thing to you that you just did to me, you’re gonna have to explain it.”

“Alright, alright,” Lance says, squeezing the last of Keith’s lube out of the bottle. Fan-fucking tastic. “You’re always so belligerent about _everything.”_

“That’s a pretty big word for you,” Keith says, and then Lance grabs his right hand and slaps a big handful of lube all over his palm and fingers. 

“On the contrary,” Lance counters. “I know many big words.”

“Like ‘diplomatting’,” Keith says, accidentally dripping lube all over Lance’s lap. Oh well, that’s where it was going anyway.

“That _should_ be a word,” Lance argues, but he’s clearly not trying very hard to prove his point because his blue eyes are fixed on Keith’s hand and he’s clearly willing Keith to get moving.

“We can argue about you making up words or I can get you off, which do you want?” Keith tells him.

“Can’t I have both?” Lance whines. Keith huffs in frustration. 

 _“Fiiine,”_ says Lance, grabbing Keith’s wrist and positioning his hand on his stomach. “Do this.”

Lance puts his hand over Keith’s and Keith watches as he guides it down his body, over his hip, down the inside of his thigh...everywhere Keith touches leaves a sheen of lube. It’s _so_ impractical, but then again Keith is pretty sure he’s never touched his own thighs except to wash them and now he’s unlikely to ever _not_ touch them when he’s trying to get off again, so...

Something strange is happening in Keith’s body as his fingers map over Lance’s skin—and it’s both nice and scary at the same time. He feels warm and comfortable and _happy_ , like he could maybe do this for hours—and then do it again tomorrow, and the next day—and that’s _terrifying._ He’s never once felt that way in his life, but he’s heard of it before and he’s done his absolute best to avoid anything that could remotely inspire this sensation _up until now._ And now he guesses he’s just gonna have to revel in it because there’s no way he’s stopping.

Lance is certainly reveling in it. He’s making a lot of really incredible noises—heavy breathing, soft moans—and Keith can’t pretend he doesn’t enjoy the fact that he’s the one making Lance feel this good. He thinks he’s got the hang of this _slow sensual_ business too. Every time he acts like he’s about to really get going, he stops and lets his fingers wander in another direction, and he knows he’s doing it right because Lance is starting to look just as frustrated as Keith felt when Lance was doing this to him. 

“That’s enough,” Lance tells him in what he clearly thinks is a commanding voice, but it comes out too breathy to be taken seriously. “You can— “

“Who’s being bossy now?” Keith interrupts him.

“I’m _teaching_ you,” Lance insists.

“Yeah right,” Keith says, and then he decides he’s tortured Lance enough and gets going. “I know what I’m doing.”

“Okay, maybe you do,” Lance admits, arching up and pushing into Keith’s hand. And because Keith hasn’t been thrown far enough out of his comfort zone, Lance then reaches down and threads the fingers of his right hand through Keith’s left, which had up until that point been resting gently on Lance’s waist. He tightens his grip on Keith’s fingers, which is...actually really sweet, and kind of romantic—and that’s _bad_ , but Keith doesn’t have time to think too hard about it because Lance comes then, and he realizes that the hand squeeze was just a warning, phew, no need to get all caught up in his _feelings._

But Lance coming is, for better or worse, exactly as hot as it was last time, and Keith is starting to resign himself to the fact that he’s probably going to want to see it happen again.

 

\---

 

The next day, they get left alone in the castle while everyone else leaves to try and fix the negotiation problems they got into three days ago. Was that really only three days ago? It feels like a _lifetime_ to Keith.

He’s taking a break from training when Lance saunters in, flopping down on the mat next to him. Keith hopes he’s not going to try and start anything because if something goes wrong, they need to be available to paladin up in a hurry, and Keith is not good at multitasking.

“We should talk,” Lance breezes.

“About what?” It’s a stupid question, because obviously he means about...yeah, but really Keith is just stalling.

“Stuff,” says Lance, and Keith holds his breath for another terrible, terrible euphemism. “Some afternoon delight, maybe?”

Oh God, at least he’s consistent with the cringe-inducing comments, even if this whole wanting-to-get-in-Keith’s-pants thing came out of fucking nowhere.

"I always thought you were pretty solidly into girls," Keith says, partly to deflect attention but mostly because he’s genuinely curious.

"I always thought that too," Lance confirms. "But uh...yep. You're definitely not a girl, what with the peni— “

"I know," Keith cuts him off. They sit in silence for several seconds, Lance tapping his fingers against the floor because he can never,  _ever_  just sit still.

"So what about you?" Lance prompts, because he can't ever shut up either.

"What about me?"

Lance rolls his eyes. "I like—liked—I dunno, I'm into girls. Usually. Actually always with like, literally one glaring exception. Do you— “

"I've never liked girls," Keith admits, and the irony of the fact that the first person he's ever come out to is  _Lance_  of all people is not lost on him for a second.

"Really?" Lance prods. "You're like... _gay_  gay then?" 

"Yes? Maybe? I don't know—honestly, I don't really like people that much."

Lance snorts. "That I could tell. But like...obviously you’re attracted to people.”

"Yeah," Keith admits.

"What kind of people?" Lance asks.

"Why do you need to know?" Keith sighs. "What purpose does this interrogation serve?"

"I'm just trying to get to know you better!" Lance says, throwing his arms up. "Forgive me for being curious if the person I'm fuc—fooling around with— “

"Alright, alright," Keith snaps, annoyed with both the terms "fucking" and "fooling around" and not even sure what term he'd prefer Lance to use to describe this...thing, if any. "I don't like girls. I am attracted to guys. I've never once wanted a relationship with anyone. Happy?"

"You've never wanted to be in a relationship?" Lance repeats, and he almost looks...sad. Like he feels sorry for Keith, which is absolutely  _unacceptable_. But he seems to shake it off really quick and comes back with, "What kind of guys are you attracted to?"

"I don't know—what kind of question is that?"

"Do you have a type?" Lance asks. God, could he  _be_  any more annoying?

"I've never even thought about it."

"Am I your type?"

"No," Keith says at once. "Absolutely not." If he's sure of one thing, it's that his type is the exact _opposite_ of everything Lance is and represents.

"Well, what makes someone attractive to you?"

Keith isn't sure why it is so vitally important to Lance all of a sudden to know what gets his motor running, but he has to grudgingly admit that it's at least peripherally related to what they've been doing the past few days, so...

"I guess...nice hair?"

"Check," Lance says, running a hand through his own hair. Ugh. 

"Tall?" 

"So Pidge is out," Lance says.

"Pidge is a girl," Keith reminds him. 

"Oh yeah," says Lance, smacking his own forehead. "Duh. Sometimes I forget."

"I'm sure she'd be thrilled to hear that," Keith replies dryly.

“What would you say is the ideal size for a crotch cannon?” Lance asks.

“This is not normal,” Keith states, dropping his head into his hands.

“Wow man, that’s messed up,” Lance tells him, patting him on the back. “There’s nothing wrong with you liking dudes.”

Keith swats his hand away. “I’m not talking about that; I’m talking about _you._ The things you say are not _normal.”_

“Like what?” Lance asks. Keith wants to tell him that nobody other than him uses these terms, but he also refuses to repeat any of the painfully horrible things Lance has said, so... 

_“Hello? Come in, Keith!”_

Saved by the comm again!

They spend the rest of the day doing Coran-appointed busywork—thankfully in separate parts of the castle. Keith takes the time to try and digest what’s been going on between him and Lance. 

So they’ve...hooked up, or whatever. Twice, which means it’s clearly not an accident. The first time he’d been really freaked out and probably more uptight than before the next day, but the second time...he has to admit that was oddly therapeutic. His muscles certainly felt looser today when he was training, like he could’ve taken out a whole squadron of Galra by himself. He’s not really sure where Lance had been going with their earlier conversation, but he’s fairly confident that they both want this...this _mutually beneficial arrangement_ to continue.

 _But what does_ continue _mean?_ Keith thinks as he scrubs down a control panel. An eternity of daily or almost daily hand job exchanges? Keith would probably be okay with that. Or...it’s almost too much to think about but...does Lance want to do _other stuff_ with him? 

Does Keith want to do other stuff with Lance?

He’s afraid to answer his own question.

“What _do_ I want?” he wonders aloud.

“Yeah,” Lance’s voice answers immediately. “Everyone’s dying to know.”

Keith looks down. He’s pressed a comm button while cleaning that apparently links to whatever part of the ship Lance is on.

“Is this Lance?” he asks before continuing, just in case other people can hear them too.

“I gotta tell ya, I’m kind of offended you don’t know my voice by now,” Lance replies. “Two nights of bow-chicka-wow-wow and you still can’t— “

“No I know it’s _you,”_ Keith interrupts, “I wanted to make sure it was _just_ you.” 

“Ohh,” says Lance. “Good thinking. So I’ve been meaning to ask, what are your general feelings on bone smuggling?”

“Is it for a mission?” Keith asks—though he can’t possibly imagine _why_ anyone would need bones smuggled anywhere—and why Shiro would tell _Lance_ about a mission before Keith. Is Lance talking about grave robbing? Somehow that doesn’t seem like something Voltron would get involved in.

“I sure hope not,” Lance replies. What?

 _What?_  

Bone... _oh._

Smuggling because...right.

Keith sucks in a deep breath.

“Is that a good”—Lance imitates the inhale Keith just made— “or a bad?”—he does it again.

Keith is tempted to just shut off the comm so he can think, but he knows Lance will take that the wrong way, so instead he just sits there and doesn’t respond for _way_ longer than is an appropriate time frame to keep someone waiting for an answer to a question like that. He’s not trying to be an asshole right now; he just doesn’t know what to say.

“Keith?” Lance says, and he sounds a whole lot softer than he did ten seconds ago. “Hey man, if I made you uncomfortable...” 

This whole _thing_ is making Keith uncomfortable. All of it. Lance is pushing his buttons and his boundaries and making him _feel things._ He still hasn’t decided if it’s in a good way or a bad way...

“...are you still there?”

...but at the moment he’s leaning toward good.

“Yeah,” says Keith—his voice sounds hoarser, a little lower than he intended. “Still here.”

“Way to respond and not leave me freaking out thinking I just lost my hump buddy. You wanna just forget I asked?” Lance asks.

“No,” Keith says. “No we...we can— “

“Go spelunking?” Lance provides and oh my _God_ why the _fuck_ did it have to be Lance? Why, why, _why?_ Keith slams his head into the dashboard, technically on purpose but a lot harder than he meant to.

“Ow.”

Lance apparently didn’t hear him. He’s yammering away about...God, what did he call it again? Bone smuggling?

“I’m gonna finish up in here,” Keith says over him.

“Aw, without me?” Lance whines.

Keith mutes the com because he’s distracted enough as it is and Lance will without a doubt continue to bombard him with innuendo if he stays on the line. Bone smuggling...

_Where the hell is he getting all these weird-ass expressions?_

 

_\---_

 

Keith’s not sure what the protocol is for these sort of things, but since he went to Lance’s room first, and then Lance came to his room...he supposes it’s his turn again. 

“Hey, Lance?” Keith knocks softly.

Lance answers the door completely naked, which seems efficient but also really impractical—what if there was an emergency or an invasion or what if the person knocking wasn’t Keith? Maybe Lance just sometimes hangs out naked, which is an even weirder thought because Keith is pretty sure he’s never done that himself in his life—but it does seem sort of like a Lance thing to do, so Keith just enters quickly to minimize the likelihood of someone else walking by and seeing Lance greeting Keith in the buff. 

Keith realizes he has not been extraordinarily forthcoming about his experience (or lack thereof, as the case may be) because A. it’s awkward, and B. he’s not sure how Lance is going to react. But he’s worried that they’ve gotten as far as they can reasonably go without him at least mentioning that he’s flying blind here. He doesn’t intend to tell Lance that their kiss a few days ago had actually been his first, or that he’d never touched another naked guy before (though he thinks Lance may have guessed it on his own—if he has, he’s been tactful enough to pretend he doesn’t know) but Keith’s not very confident he can bullshit his way through _this._

“Lemme get my stuff,” Lance says, rummaging in a drawer and coming out with...condoms and lube. Keith makes a mental note to swipe the lube before he leaves.

“Have you ever done this before?” Keith asks. If Lance is like, _of course, who hasn’t,_ he can maybe just let Lance take the lead and act like he knows what he’s doing.

“I’m a fast learner. How do you normally do it?” Lance reaches over and flings a condom at Keith. He manages to catch it, but Lance starts talking again before he can reply. 

“Cause I was thinking about it and _obviously_ I’ve stuck stuff up my ass before and some of it has been vaguely wang-sized and I mean, you’re big-ish but...”

Keith feels like his eyes are about to pop out of his head. _Lance_ is relying on _Keith’s_ experience? Wow, this is going to _suck._

“Um...” Keith says.

“What? Are you verse?”

What the fuck does _that_ mean?

“That’s cool,” Lance continues, as though Keith had actually answered his question. “What are you feeling like tonight?”

Keith figured he’d at least get a little further than this before it became obvious that he had no idea what the fuck he was doing.

“What...what do you feel like?” he asks, hoping maybe Lance’s answer will include another piece of the puzzle Keith is trying to frantically put together mentally.

“I’ve never had sex with a guy before,” Lance reminds him. “I told you, you’re the only guy I’ve ever even _wanted_ to have sex with.”

Keith ignores the warm feeling in his chest that flares up at the thought that Lance has never felt about another guy the way he feels about Keith because...

“I’ve never had sex with _anybody.”_

There. He said it.

He waits for his words to register with Lance. One...two...

“Wait,” Lance says, holding up a hand. “Hold on. When I kissed you the other day...was that your first kiss?”

Damn. He was hoping it would’ve taken Lance longer to figure _that_ part out. Keith briefly considers lying but decides it’s not worth it. He nods, looking somewhere over Lance’s shoulder. 

“Oh,” says Lance—to his credit, he doesn’t try to apologize or some shit. Keith swears to God he would _leave._ “Okay. You’re sure you still want to do this?”

Keith glances at Lance quickly. He’s still sitting naked on the bed and this conversation is _really_ uncomfortable, and Keith is _aching_ to reach out and touch him—touch his smooth skin and feel them moving together...

He nods again. “Yeah.”

Lance looks like he’s thinking hard for a second, then he smirks and says, “You planning on keeping all your clothes on again this time too?”

And just like that, they’re back to what Keith knows—the banter, the jibes. _That_ he can do.

What he can’t do is Lance touching him all softly and reverently, like now that he knows Keith is a _virgin_ he has to be careful with him. He stands to meet Keith and kisses him gently while Keith sheds his jacket and shirt, eases his pants off—they’ve fucking done this part before, Keith does _not_ need to be treated like a scared forest animal. He pushes Lance back onto the bed with a little more force than usual once he’s naked, like maybe it’ll snap him back to normal. It doesn’t work.

"Lay back down," Lance whispers, stroking his hand across Keith's cheek.

"Stop babying me," Keith snaps automatically.

"I'm not _babying_  you, asshole!" Lance argues. "I'm  _trying_  to make love to you!"

Keith buries his face in his own hands, flopping back against the sheets. "Just kill me," he groans. Death might be preferable to ever hearing Lance talk about _making love_ again.

“So what’s the biggest thing you’ve ever had in your ass?”

Keith takes it back. _That’s_ worse. Lance is now laying on top of him, arms crossed on Keith’s chest and resting his head on them.

“I’ve never had _anything_ in my ass,” he mumbles from between his fingers.

“I forgot who I was talking to,” Lance says. “The guy who almost popped when I touched his thigh. Well, guess that answers the question of who’s topping.”

“What does that mean?” Keith asks. He feels a little more comfortable asking questions now that it’s all out in the open and Lance knows he’s clueless. 

“Do you even know how sex with two guys works?” Lance demands.

“ _Yes,_ ” says Keith, because he’s seen...pictures. Movies. But he’s never _talked_ to anyone about it, and they don’t exactly model conversations like this one in the movies he’s watched. 

“The bottom is the one getting dicked down, and the top is the one doing the dicking,” Lance explains, which is possibly the worst way ever to phrase it but is nonetheless highly descriptive. “And today you’re going to be the top because I’m not sticking my dick in your virgin ass—you would _cry.”_  

Well, at least that’s been decided. Keith looks at Lance and is suddenly struck by how good he actually feels—he wishes the topic was just about anything else, but having Lance lying naked on top of him like this and talking is...nice. Too nice. Keith finally removes his hands completely from his face and wraps them around Lance, lifting his head to kiss him.

“There he is,” Lance murmurs, and then it’s like the awkward conversation didn’t happen—they’re back to the kissing, but it’s slow this time, slower and deeper than ever. Lance is touching his neck and his chest with warm, soothing pressure, and it feels like the flames of his arousal are simmering pleasantly rather than torching everything in their path. And he doesn’t get that nauseating lurch that happens when all the blood in his body floods down into his dick at once—it’s more like a creek filling a pond. Slowly, slowly he gets harder, his skin gets more sensitive—

How the fuck does Lance _do_ this to him? This is Lance—Lance, who got himself stuck in a pod because he was _bored_ and never stops messing with shit, who is constantly under Keith’s skin because he’s whiny and random and obnoxious, and who can apparently make Keith explode from the inside out or keep him on a torturously delicious slow burn indefinitely just because he feels like it. 

Lance reaches over to the bedside table and grabs the lube. Keith’s eyes are closed so he doesn’t see it, but he can hear it—the pop as he clicks open the lid, the sort of icky wet squeeze, Lance’s fingers rubbing together, and then Lance reaches between his own legs. Keith still can’t see what he’s doing but he can guess, and he feels kind of guilty making Lance do all this work.

“Do you want me to help?” he finally asks between kisses. It’s been going on for long enough that Lance probably has everything taken care of, but Keith at least feels like he should offer.

“Nope,” says Lance, then he apparently hits something right inside himself and the fingers of his other hand tighten on Keith’s shoulder. “You’re gonna learn on _you,_ I don’t want your fingers in my ass until you know what you’re doing.”

“Hey,” says Keith. He’s going for offended but it’s _really_ difficult to summon any venom right now. “You’re about to have my dick up there but you don’t trust my fingers?”

“Your dick doesn’t have nails,” Lance tells him, and Keith suddenly gets a really weird mental image but he doesn’t have time to dwell on it before Lance says, “You know what, actually—you can go ahead and clean my rifle while I’m back here.”

It takes Keith a few seconds to process that Lance is _not_ talking about his paladin weapon, but okay—this he knows how to do, he’s done it twice with great success (at least it _seemed_ like great success), so he reaches for Lance’s flagging erection and starts stroking.

Lance looks down between them and lets out a sigh.

“Get...” he pants, “Get yours in there too.”

Finally, a straightforward instruction without any cringe-worthy terminology! Score one for Lance. Keith’s never held two dicks in one hand but he’d be lying if he said he hadn’t thought about it before. It turns out to be not nearly as difficult (and twice as hot) as he’d expected, and Lance seems to think so too—his eyes are fixed down between them as he thrusts up into Keith’s hand.

“I could get used to that,” he admits quietly.

 _Me too,_ Keith thinks—but he can’t quite bring himself to say it out loud. He’s starting to think he’s going to have to slow down if he doesn’t want to come before they can get to the main event. 

Fortunately, before he’s forced to admit it, Lance says, “Alrighty then, I think we’re good to go.”

Keith fumbles for the condom—he thinks he dropped it somewhere in the sheets at some point while they were kissing.

“You’re going to have to show me how to put this on,” he tells Lance. 

“You’ve never put on a condom?” Lance asks. Do they have to have this whole virgin discussion over again? Keith feels like he just barely lived through it the first time.

“Do _you_ jerk off with condoms on?” Keith says instead.

“Well I _have,”_ Lance says.

“Why?!” Keith asks. Lance does a lot of dumb, pointless shit, but this might be a new level.

“To see what it felt like, of course,” Lance says, tearing the foil off the condom and rolling it expertly over Keith’s erection. “It’s called ‘having fun,’ you should try it sometime.”

“I have fun,” Keith tells him.

“Do you?” Lance replies, but he’s not really paying that much attention to the conversation as he positions himself over Keith and sinks down a couple centimeters.

“Yeah,” Keith breathes, unable to tear his eyes away from the sight. “I do.”

He’s got a hand on each of Lance’s thighs and he doesn’t even notice how tight his grip is until Lance says, “Keith, you’re cutting off the circulation to my legs. I need all the blood I can get flowing right now.”

Keith moves his left hand to Lance’s waist and decides to put his right hand back to good use. He can tell immediately that this was a good move because Lance sighs and pushes down a little more, so he keeps going.

It takes about ten million millennia by Keith’s estimation, but inch by inch, Lance works his way down until he’s sitting firmly in Keith’s lap. Keith’s still stroking him slowly.

“Now what?” Keith asks.

“Now what?” Lance repeats. “Uh...now you nail me?”

_“How?”_

“Dude, you had this down just fine when I was using my hand. Just thrust up.” Lance lifts himself up using a hand placed firmly on the pillow on either side of Keith’s face as leverage, then lowers himself down again. “You buck, I ride. Easy.”

 _Goddamnit._ Keith pushes his upper body off the bed to kiss Lance because he’s going to have to bang his head against the wall if Lance says another word, but Lance leans down to meet him and... wow. The kiss is kind of sloppy and unfocused, but the rhythm they build up with their hips isn’t. Lance was right. This _is_ easy, it’s the most natural thing in the universe. He feels like his body has overridden his brain again like— _we got this, you chill._

Keith has a few incredible, perfect moments where his whole body feels _right_ and he thinks this is the best thing that’s ever happened to him—his hips roll basically by themselves, he’s got his hand going on Lance in perfect sync with Lance’s down strokes, even Lance’s tongue in his mouth seems to be moving in tandem with everything else. 

And then of course, he has to ruin it by coming. His orgasm slams into him out of nowhere and he at least has the presence of mind to go harder and faster with his hand because he knows he’s breaking the awesome rhythm they had going and he’s hoping Lance won’t notice he fucked up if he jerks him off well enough.

Despite the fact that he’s having to focus on someone else at the same time and he’s not a great multitasker even when he’s _not_ having the orgasm of a lifetime, his plan seems to work. Lance’s hips keep moving in a soft rocking motion as he pushes up into Keith’s hand. Keith’s done, but he feels it when Lance comes because Lance’s muscles tighten around him and he collapses forward onto Keith’s chest, panting hard. Keith’s world narrows to Lance—Lance’s body, Lance’s—but then he realizes that he’s thought of nothing but Lance for the last half hour at least—probably longer—and he’s perfectly content to keep it that way.

Lance then rolls off...and kind of breaks the spell. Not completely, but Keith starts noticing _gross things_ again—like his sticky chest and the fact that he’s got a condom kind of hanging off his rapidly softening dick. Keith pulls the condom off, cleans up, and tosses Lance a handful of tissues.

Keith rolls onto his side, face-to-face with Lance but not looking at him, playing with the edge of the blanket and wallowing in awkwardness. What should be happening is that Keith should be getting up, putting his clothes back on and leaving. Going back to his own room, to his own bed where it's comfortable and he's not crammed into a single bed with a whole other—very long and elbow-y—person. Like, Lance has to have at least ten elbows. Keith is being poked everywhere. He should leave.

That's what should be happening.

Any minute now...

But it's not happening. Keith just lays there in quiet, mounting horror as he realizes  _he does not want to leave_. Lance is sweaty and he’s sweaty, and they're sticky and kind of mushed together and tangled up, and the sheets are...God, Keith doesn't even want to think about it, and  _he wants to stay_. To be fair, Lance isn't showing any signs of kicking Keith out of bed either—at least, that's what it seems like, based on the fact that he hasn't moved or said anything. Keith glances up to find Lance staring at him and that feels enough like a challenge that Keith glares back.

Ah. He gets it. Keith is waiting for Lance to kick him out. Lance is waiting for Keith to kick himself out. Well that's just too fucking bad for Lance then because Keith isn't going to crack. He _never_ backs down from a dare. He—

He falls asleep.

 

\--- 

 

And wakes up  _cuddling_  with Lance. It's not spooning—it's  _worse_. They're face to face, like they were when they fell asleep. One of Keith's arms is draped over Lance's waist. Lance's arm is thrown over Keith's neck. Their legs are tangled together. And this scares Keith worse than any of it—the hand-holding when they’re touching each other, the talking about what they have (and haven’t) done before—because Keith doesn't know that much about relationships but he knows that you don't sleep like _this_  with someone unless you  _like_  them. A lot.

"Hey," he whispers, withdrawing his arm and staring at Lance. He's not sure why exactly he's waking Lance up—logically it would make more sense to just leave and pretend he slept in his own bed but...honestly, the idea of being alone with his thoughts right now is not appealing, and talking to Lance might be preferable. Keith's not really sure—he just doesn't want to think too hard about how much he must like Lance to be sleeping with him in the position they're in. 

"Wha...?" Lance opens his eyes and focuses them on Keith, and then it's like a dam has broken—Keith notices about eight different problems at once. He's slept the whole night on his right arm and it's so numb that his first instinct is _I'm gonna have to chop it off with my bayard_. He's really close to falling off the bed. Lance has stolen the blanket. Lance is breathing on him with horrible morning breath. Keith's feeling sluggish and groggy so he probably got woken up multiple times during the night by Lance's absurdly sharp elbows. And Lance has drooled all over the pillow they're sharing and that's _still_ not the worst part.

The worst part is that Keith hopes they can do this again tomorrow—whether sex is involved or not.

"You drooled all over the pillow," Keith informs Lance, because that seems like the most egregious offense right now since the right side of Keith's face is coated in drool and _oh my God_ it's on his hair. He's going to have to shave his head now.

"You know, you spent most of last night swapping spit with me," Lance grumbles. " _Now_  you're grossed out?"

 _It's not the same_ , Keith wants to tell him.

"Anyway," Lance continues. "You snore." 

"No I don't," Keith says.

"Yes you do," Lance argues. "I would know—you did it in my ear all night."

“Well— “ 

“Just roll over,” Lance mutters, and then he pushes Keith’s shoulder and slots in behind him and wraps his arms around Keith’s chest and then...well. Keith doesn’t really have any choice but to drift back off to sleep.

He jolts awake all of a sudden, still in Lance’s arms. He’s never _once_ gotten up this late and he stumbles out of bed, throws his clothes on and is just finger combing through his hair when Lance yawns behind him.

“I’m leaving first,” he tells Lance. “Just wait a few minutes before you come out.”

Keith bolts before he can reply, out the door and straight down into the—Shiro.

Uh...fuck.

Hopefully Shiro didn’t see him come out of—

“I was looking for you. You slept in Lance’s room last night.” It’s not a question. Shiro must have gone to Keith’s room and knocked and he wasn’t there. Shit shit shit.

“Yeah,” he says, scrambling to think of a lie. “We were up...uh...talking, and I just...fell asleep?”

Keith is a terrible liar. He’s fine if he’s just avoiding a question, but he _sucks_ big time at lying directly, especially to Shiro. Why did he have to say they were _talking?_ Shiro isn’t stupid—he knows Keith would never in a million years just go into Lance’s room for “bro time” and chat it up until he conked out. Maybe he could say they were cleaning their weapons together or something.

“Okay so, I’m just gonna go have some break— “

“I’m not going to tell anyone,” Shiro says quietly. He leans back against the wall, a clear invitation for Keith to scurry past him and out of the hallway if he wants to, but he’s kind of rooted to the spot with terror so he guesses he’ll stay and talk.

“How long has this been going on?” Shiro asks.

“A few days,” Keith admits. He’s going to try and be as cagey about this as possible—it’s bad enough talking about this shit with Lance, but Shiro...

“What _is_ going on, exactly?”

“Do I really have to say it?” Keith whispers, crossing his arms over his chest. His face is on _fire._ He’s going to run away as soon as his legs start working again.

“No,” Shiro says, “I mean...is this a relationship?”

“I...”

And then Lance comes strolling out of his room and oh my _God_ Keith wishes the castle would just swallow him.

Lance stops dead in the hallway and looks between Shiro and Keith.

“What’s up?” he asks slowly, catching Keith’s eye.

“Shiro knows,” Keith says shortly.

“You told him?!”

“No!” Keith bursts out. “He caught me sneaking out of your room. If you’d just let me leave this morning when I woke up the first time, he wouldn’t have come looking for me and— “

“Dude, you were giving me shit for drooling on _my own pillow_ — “

“—it’s not your pillow when we’re sharing it— “

“—so I cuddled you to shut you up and, might I add, it worked very well.”

“Lance, what’s going on here?” Shiro asks. _Yeah, good luck getting a straight answer out of Lance,_ Keith thinks. _He hasn’t told me where the fuck this came from either so—_

“Tomfoolery?” Lance offers.

Shiro sighs. “I wouldn’t get involved, but if this is going to affect Voltron— “

“It won’t,” Keith assures him.

“So this is purely a physical thing?”

Lance _hesitates._ Keith’s heart starts beating a million times a minute and he turns to stare at Lance.

“Is it?” Keith asks. And he knows what he wants Lance to say right now—deep down, he knows, but he still doesn’t want to think about it.

“Well it _started_ that way...” Lance hedges. Keith’s heart feels like it’s beating in his throat and he couldn’t swallow right now if his life depended on it.

“And now?” Shiro prompts.

“What about you?” Lance demands of Keith.

“What about _me?”_ Keith repeats. “Shiro asked _you.”_

“I asked _both_ of you,” Shiro says. And then he waits. And waits. Keith is fervently hoping for some kind of terrible disaster to strike right now so that they can just form Voltron and maybe Shiro will forget about this whole thing and they can go on not talking about this forever.

“Clearly you guys haven’t figured this out yet. I’m going to go save you some breakfast and leave you here to talk about it. Come to the dining room when you’ve made a decision.” Shiro leaves.

Keith had been sure that it would be less awkward to talk to just Lance, but he was apparently _so_ wrong. Shiro leaves the hallway and Keith strongly considers going to hide in his room, but his breakfast is being held hostage and he hasn’t eaten anything since he and Lance...well, he’s super hungry. So they _have_ to talk now.

Well, Keith sure as fuck isn’t going to be the first to crack. Lance is going to have to have to cough up some explanation for why he didn’t say, _oh yeah Shiro, it doesn’t mean anything—just for shits and giggles._  

And then Keith thinks about what would happen if Lance got an opportunity to have sex that  _did_  mean something to him—like what if Lance did something extra heroic and Allura suddenly changed her mind about finding him repulsive? How would Keith feel if that happened?

Miserable, that's how. He would be upset and jealous and angry and he can’t convince himself otherwise because he feels that way just _thinking_  about Lance and Allura together.

Lance appears to be carefully committing the floor pattern to memory while Keith is quietly having his little crisis. And standing here in mortifying awkwardness, he is forced to conclude that, God help him, he _likes_ Lance. Likes him like _that_ —isn’t just attracted to his body or whatever. He likes being close to Lance, holding him, kissing him—and for sure he’s into the sex but it’s so obviously more than that at this point that he can’t even deny it to himself anymore. 

And it’s one thing to think those things, but to say them out loud...

“Let’s just get this out of the way,” Lance sighs. “I like you, okay?”

God, what a relief. What an unbelievable fucking relief. The tightness in his chest gives easily into a glorious warmth that sweeps over his whole body, relaxing all his muscles. 

“But don’t be an asshole about it,” Lance adds.

“I wasn’t going to be!” Keith snaps.

“You usually are,” Lance says. “I was being proactive.”

“No, _you_ usually are,” Keith argues. “But I wasn’t going to be because I like you too, idiot.”

“Oh thank God,” Lance says all in a rush. His shoulders sag like he’s been carrying around the secret like a big heavy backpack. “I thought I was the only one falling in love here. Good to know we’re really stuck with each other now.”

Lance pecks him on the lips and strolls off toward breakfast. Keith’s about to follow him when—

Wait a second.

_Love?!_

**Author's Note:**

> True friendship is beta-ing a smutfic for a ship you don't even like--THANK YOU THANK YOU to Jillian_Bowes!
> 
> And an equal THANK YOU to my favorite yes-man dawnseeker. <3
> 
> Come talk to me on tumblr! mischiefxmanager.tumblr.com


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